The Windows Between Reality
by LadyNRA
Summary: A certain Warehouse supervisor takes a journey he isn't prepared for and gets a little help from his friends in order to get back.
1. Chapter 1

**Title**: The Windows Between Reality

**Author:** LadyNRA

**Rating**: PG

**Spoilers**: Nothing that fans don't know already

**Characters**: Artie, Pete, Myka, Leena, cameo by Claudia, and a few surprise guests

**Genre**: Drama (more or less)

**Disclaimer**: The producers and Syfy may own it but I'm taking the time to play with the characters (especially Artie) for a little while.

**Summary**: A certain Warehouse supervisor takes a journey he isn't prepared for and gets a little help from his friends in order to get back.

**Author's Note: **I tried to keep this in line with the tone of Warehouse 13 episodes. A bit fluffy but not too much. Some of you will think I borrowed the idea from a current TV program or one from a few years ago, but the basic theme has been around far longer than that, so please don't see it as a rip off of that current show. It was actually based off of a dream I had back in April (2011) and, with encouragement from friends, I decided to create a story based on the dream. Many thanks to KJay99 for beta reading this for me.

The Windows Between Reality

By LadyNRA

"Here it is, boss!" the sandy-haired man stated as he handed over a thick manila folder to his significantly shorter and stouter supervisor.

The older man before him was stroking his graying goatee in his typically contemplative manner albeit with more noise and force than usual. A thick fingered hand absent-mindedly reached out for the folder and, without a single glance at the contents, tossed it onto the table with a loud thwack. Soon he recommenced the incoherent muttering which had earned him strange looks all morning.

Washed out blue eyes hardened and darkened. "Hey aren't you going to look at it?"

"At what?" his boss asked, never taking his eyes off the monitor even as his hands returned to the keyboard before him.

That comment made the guy growl slightly, an ineffectual sound because the recipient was too preoccupied to hear it or too oblivious to pay it any heed. "I worked hard on that, and you told me it was urgent. I figured you'd at least want to take a peek at the information."

Dark brown eyes under dense eyebrows slowly drifted toward him. "Yeah, Carl. You're right. Let's see it."

Carl's perpetual frown lines deepened. Instead of picking up the recently discarded folder, he pointed at it. He'd be damned if he was going to play this game.

True, his superior was "distracted", unusually so, even for him. All morning, Agent Nielsen had gone way beyond that description and seemed to be mentally residing out in the ozone somewhere. But Carl had no intention of trying to drag him back to reality. It often meant more work for _him_.

It took several seconds for Nielsen to stop his aggravated muttering and regain some semblance of coherence. He jabbed his slipping glasses and wet his dry lips. In spite of that, he couldn't keep his eyes from straying back and forth between junior agent and computer screen.

Carl studied him, wondering what would drive such a reputedly eccentric individual even farther into 'madness'. He leaned against the opposite desk and rapped on its scarred surface twice, a put up or shut up gesture he often used for self motivation.

Finally, he relented and decided to be 'helpful'. His voice grew soft and tinged with compassion. "It's right there, remember?"

Arthur Nielsen's right eyebrow twitched in consternation. Clearly his memory, which was generally superb and awe-inspiring, had flagged. Glancing down and heaving an audible sigh, he scooped it up. The contents of the folder were soon splayed out in front of him.

"No, no, this can't be," he murmured through lips drawn into a tense line. Those furry eyebrows knit together so suddenly they looked as if they were about to crash and burn in a spectacular wreck. Fortunately the wreck was averted when his eyes locked on the dossier's photos at the bottom of the pile.

Another breathy sigh escaped him. "I know them...at least I think I do."

"Yeah, so?" the agent named Carl Corcoran responded.

"Never mind, Carl," Agent Nielsen told him softly as his mind drew in on itself again.

Corcoran drew in a breath and held it. Called Corky by everyone there except his superior, Carl often wondered if this was his boss's way of maintaining a profession distance. Since it was not at all unusual for agents to die in the line of duty, he assumed that for some people, not getting too personal was their way of handling it. Unconsciously, he shrugged, and slowly released the breath with a gentle sound that bordered on a whistle.

"Those are the guys you were tracking down aren't they?" he queried in as mild a tone as he could muster. Yelling at the boss would only earn him a 50/50 chance of getting a complete answer and he really, really needed the answer to this one although he couldn't exactly verbalize why it was so important to him.

"Yeah…yeah, uh—" Nielsen stopped short as his eyes caught something seemingly unexpected. He scrolled down on the keyboard again. The schematics there revealed miles and miles of underground storage areas on several sublevels of the office building complex. Those sublevels extended well beyond what was currently showing on the screen.

Something was off about the whole arrangement but once again, Artie couldn't figure out why. A hasty check of the monitoring equipment showed everything was as it should be both down there and all the way up to his level. No sounds issued from his throat except for a confused grunt or two.

_Damn_, the other agent thought ruefully, _make that a 25/75 chance he'd get a coherent answer, even with yelling_. "So what's so special about them?" Corky asked pointedly, trying to lean in for a better look. His gangly frame, so much taller than Nielsen's, succeeded in visually bridging the distance between the two desks.

Without answering, Artie glanced around the room, taking stock of his surroundings with more intensity than he had in a very long time. The suite of offices they were in, top level to be exact, unless one counted the penthouse level, looked exactly like every other suite in the structure. Tan walls, brown, beige and blue industrial carpeting, standard industrial blinds on the main window, serviceable clocks on the walls.

The only oddity was the noticeable absence of cubicle walls. Everyone had a great view of everyone else. Hastily, he noted each of the room's occupants, eight in all if he didn't count himself. Three women, five men all told. Most of them in the early thirty something range although Corky was slightly younger and Bernie Gleason was pushing forty five and looked like it. In fact, he looked older; at least as old as Artie who had better than ten years on him. All of these people, Carl and Bernie included, were his responsibility.

Still ignoring his junior agent, he turned his exhausted body and mind back to the dossiers on his desk. The two faces, similar to those found on his earlier computer search, gazed back at him; one male, one female. Both were irritatingly familiar. Like a persistent tickle at the edges of his memory, those faces had nagged at him the entire morning.

Whispers and murmurs tugged at outskirts of his mind as he gazed down. Shadows and ghosts of images danced in and out of his recollections before he could firmly grasp and bring them to the surface. Now he had their files in front of him but no answers were forthcoming aside from the basic information contained within. Nothing definite sprang to mind although the nagging sensations didn't dissipate one bit. Another short rumble of frustration emanated from deep within his chest.

Corky bit his full lower lip with white but slightly crooked front teeth. He didn't get where he was without being persistent, he reminded himself. "Okay, what's so important about Peter Lattimer and Myka Bering? I mean, I get it. Sort of. They're one of us. Secret Service. But they are on White House detail most of the time."

Hopeful that an answer might be just around the corner, Carl paused for breath to give his boss a chance to reply. None was forthcoming. Since he couldn't corral his curiosity that easily, he went on.

"What I'm saying is it's obvious they wouldn't normally have anything to do with us. Heck, they don't know we exist. And they wouldn't believe us if we told them what we really do…even if we _could_ tell them. So why look into them? Mrs. Frederic wanting to replace Gilbert and Jennings? Or are they on the radar because of some suspicious activity?"

Artie gave him a gimlet stare but maintained silence. Instead, he leaned back in his worn office chair and began a slow, steady rocking. When the obnoxious squeal of the springs became too much, Corky gave a disgusted frown and turned away.

It was then that Agent Nielsen dragged the still open folders across the desk for a more thorough look.


	2. Chapter 2

CHAPTER 2

"Not possible," Mrs. Frederic stated flatly. "To state the obvious. He was protected by the neutralizing fields. These things don't simply 'happen' inside the Warehouse." The austere African American woman gazed over the main floor of the Warehouse. "Unless there was direct contact with an artifact I am not familiar with."

Agent Myka Bering's green eyes widened slightly then narrowed as she mentally reviewed the huge list of artifacts in 'the manual'. It was by no means exhaustive, however. There were probably thousands of items on those shelves that hadn't been extensively studied. Even more if one included all the dingy yellow index cards listing nothing but the location where it'd been found and the damage it was believed to have caused. Artie had once told them that there were a sizable number of artifacts stored on those shelves without any information at all because such data had disappeared for a variety of reasons, fires over the last two thousand years not withstanding.

Myka frowned mightily at this fact. She couldn't think of a single thing that could have created their current 'problem'.

Turning hard brown eyes on the two agents, Mrs. Frederic prompted, "Tell me again what you saw."

"We were right, here," supplied Pete without hesitation, pointing at the office with a waggling forefinger. "I was over there," again he gestured, this time at the red leather chair, "going over the latest list of artifacts to change—"

"And daydreaming about playing with every one of them along the way," Myka supplied with a sideways glance at her partner. She wanted to diffuse the tension but it didn't work. Pete's expression remained pinched. She tried to force a bland look but mustering anything other than a frown was impossible.

"Oh hah!" replied Pete with a wrinkle-nosed baring of teeth. "I'm telling you, he was sitting right there, in front of his computer and all of a sudden…Poof—"

Nodding vigorously Myka added, "Yeah, poof. Then he wasn't."

"Wasn't?" Mrs. Frederick prompted although she'd already heard several disjointed versions of it over the Farnsworth. "Elaborate on 'poof'."

"I wasn't looking at him," explained Pete, on firmer ground now. "I just know it got sort of quiet." He glanced at the liaison between Warehouse and the Regents, but couldn't hold her eye for long. "It's not like he's noisy. I just mean, it felt like something was missing from the room and so I looked up and saw he—"

"Wasn't there," Myka finished for him. Her eyes darted back and forth between desk and the clear Lucite board plastered with newspaper clippings, photos, and post it notes. That had been her position within the room before this had all happened. She shivered as she remembered the 'absence' of her boss, a sensation felt rather than seen.

Pacing slowly around the main desk, as if that act would provide answers, Mrs. Frederic maintained complete silence except for the clack of her hard soled heels on the floor. Finally, she asked, "No vibes?"

Since there was no doubt who the question was directed at, Pete replied, "None." His tone was weak, distant.

Mrs. Frederic didn't miss it. "Except," she prompted, knowing full well there was more.

"Well, it's hard to explain."

"Try." Her typically stern voice grew even sterner, if that was possible.

Pete visibly shivered although he couldn't have said if it was because of the cold tone or because of the eerie presence of the woman herself. Finally, he confessed. "I felt…something. Like a vibe, but not…really. I think I sensed trouble but it never got ramped up. Sort of like a tickle on the skin rather than a punch in the gut. When I looked up, no more Artie."

"No more Artie," Myka parroted. In this case, she had no idea what to say. Everything had gone down with a whisper rather than a shout and she had nothing else to add, at least nothing of any value.

Stopping her pacing, Mrs. Frederic stood before the computer and donned purple gloves. Lightly she ran covered fingertips over the keyboard. Nothing happened. The pressure hadn't been great enough to depress any keys. Next she ran those same fingers over the Wacom tablet. This time some images on the screen shifted.

Everyone unconsciously leaned over to see what was on the monitor but it was just different views of the stacks below them.

"Pretty much what Artie had been looking at before this happened," confirmed Myka. "We got an AD warning over in Lima C58249, and he had called up the information on it."

"The hot air balloon basket?" queried Mrs. Frederic. "That was the original artifact setting off the warning bells?"

"Yeah," Pete answered softly. He didn't want to admit he knew nothing about it, but obviously Artie's boss did.

A perfectly manicured forefinger stroked her temple. "Not the problem," she stated firmly in less time than it took for anyone in the room to draw a breath.

"You're sure?" Pete asked. That earned him a look colder than liquid nitrogen. Mentally, Pete kicked himself. Of course she was sure. She was the caretaker after all. She had an encyclopedic knowledge of the place. If she proclaimed that artifact wasn't the culprit, then it wasn't.

"Agent Lattimer, that particular item defies gravity when activated. Nothing more. You probably got the AD notification because it had levitated." Her voice grew harder, like a teacher decidedly displeased with her pupil. "If allowed to remain in that state, it could have drifted out of its area. Who knows what it would have knocked over after that. However, in and of itself, it is relatively harmless." She gave him another icy stare. "And I feel it's time for you to grow more acquainted with it. Go down there and make sure it's secure."

With a parting eye roll that only Myka could see, Pete lumbered out of the office.


	3. Chapter 3

CHAPTER 3

The summons came with its usual no nonsense manner, an email on the computer that simply stated, "Come see me."

Artie Nielsen arched his back and groaned at his unhappy muscles. His foot stretched out, kicking the small safe tucked underneath the desk. It was just big enough to store his black bag, the one containing several artifacts approved for field use during his last assignment. Sometime soon he'd need to return them, but not just yet. His confused mind didn't want to shift toward such mundane issues.

He'd been virtually immobile in front of his computer for several hours after perusing the two requested files. His inner voice was still whispering non-stop. Unfortunately, reading and rereading those files several times over did nothing to dissipate the eerie feelings of déjà vu that kept washing over him. Carl Corcoran had been right about one thing. Those two would have made excellent Agents. They were smart, dedicated, creative and quick to assimilate facts although Lattimer was more inclined to listen to these weird intuition based warnings he called vibes and Bering was too serious for her own good. It made her exceptional at her job but would only lead to hard feelings among her coworkers. No one liked a hard-nose. This may have been a preferable trait in upper management but she'd never get that far unless she learned to suck up to the right people.

Idly, his thumb and forefinger stroked his lip. Those fingers moved inward from the edges of his mouth, meeting together, opening and starting the process all over again. Yeah, Myka had her strengths and flaws. Pete had a different set of occupational issues. He was a womanizer, had struggled with 'the bottle', acted too impulsively and had a reputation for not being as serious as he should be when on assignment, a trait likely to get him killed. Or worse, get someone else killed. But they were Daniel Dickenson's headache, so why was he dwelling on them? Because, while he knew, _knew,_ he'd never met them, there was something so naggingly familiar about them, that's why.

With some difficulty, he lumbered to his feet, and trudged slowly toward the elevator. He slid open a panel, removed his wire-framed glasses, and peered into the iris recognition scanner. A light above it flashed green and he quickly punched in a code with thick fingers. Only he knew the code. That's what being second in command got him…codes to access a floor that didn't show up on the elevator panel and a regular trip through the wringer every time his agents messed up during a retrieval.

"Terrace", the feminine voice said and the doors silently slid apart. Mrs. Frederic's office loomed before him. The antique furniture within the spacious room would have been labeled ancient by anyone's standards. No pride here, only comfort and practicality as if the occupant had chosen 1940's 'man-cave' furniture and then added a few feminine touches to the décor. As expected the room was empty. It usually was. He walked to the solitary, full wall window behind the desk and glanced out at the buildings nearby.

Below him, he could make out people walking. Some occasionally glanced at the words written on the front of the structure. Internal Revenue Service. He could imagine them mentally making the sign of the cross with both forefingers as if to ward off evil. Once he'd seen a teenager actually do that to get a chuckle from his friends. Generally, once people got older, if they were going to make gestures, they were a whole lot ruder than that. He had to confess that displaying the large bold lettering was the perfect way to keep curious minds away. No one in their right mind wanted to enter the front doors let alone try to tour other levels.

"Arthur," a voice said from right behind his shoulder.

He jumped. He _always_ jumped. No matter how hard he listened, he could never hear her entrance. It was downright unnerving and no amount of mental preparation helped. Artie waited until his bounding heart returned to a normal rhythm before turning around. When he did, it was a smooth and casual move that didn't reveal his inner turmoil.

"Mrs. Frederic," he stated, surprised by how calm he sounded.

"I understand you requested some files today that were not authorized by me."

Nielsen's eyebrows twitched. "I've never needed your approval to access information before."

"In the normal course of your investigations, that is true, but Agents Lattimer and Bering are not part of any artifact procurement, are they?" The question was more rhetorical than anything else. She trusted her people to do their jobs without constant supervision. In fact, it was very rare that she got involved with the day to day operation of the facility, but anything out of the ordinary still attracted her attention…somehow. Since the very items they steadfastly hunted down were considerably 'less than ordinary', it was anyone's guess why something as simple as personnel file requisitions should warrant a meeting.

"You're avoiding the issue," she pushed.

"Their names came up in a conversation and I wanted to find out more about them."

"Lies, Agent Nielsen? I'm shocked. That's hardly your style." She sounded more amused than angry.

Suddenly, Artie's broad shoulders slumped. He fought to keep his arms from crossing over his rounded midsection. Instead, he let them drop to his side, fingers curled against his thighs. When he finally found his voice, it was weak, strained and devoid of certainty.

"I can't begin to explain this," he said.

"Try," was the succinct reply.

Artie licked his dry lips and roughly raked his fingers through his graying curls. "Something is wrong."

"Such as?"

"I—I don't know. Something..." He paused, groping for words and found none.

"You said that already," Mrs. Frederic observed dryly.

A gusty sigh breezed through pursed lips. "Okay, this is going to sound crazy—"

The woman opposite him bestowed one of her rare smiles. "We're in the business of crazy."

The smile was returned after a couple of seconds of contemplative silence. "There isn't much to tell. Seemed like a normal morning. Everyone but Alcorn slept in residence last night. He had some family matters to attend to. Everyone remaining ate breakfast together, more or less. May I?" He gestured at the low wooden file cabinet where a pitcher of ice water sat beside several crystal glasses.

His superior gave an affirmative gesture toward the pitcher. Artie slowly plodded over, feeling far older than his fifty five years. The brief respite and the cool water sliding down his parched throat let him continue to organize his thoughts.

"Eventually we all came upstairs and had our morning briefing. We got pings on several possible locations for artifact activity. My new algorithm program is working nicely and it's been filtering out more extraneous information than in the past which has been a help. Fewer wild goose chases."

Mrs. Frederic leaned back against her desk. "No one is questioning your abilities, Arthur. When you are doing the research, there aren't many wild gooses to chase. But I'm pleased at the success of your new programs. Now, back to the issue at hand."

Artie's brown eyes wouldn't meet hers and she didn't fail to notice. He threw his hands up. "Fine. Fine. After all the assignments were distributed, I sat down to work on some things the old fashioned way. Hendersonville, Illinois keeps calling out to me. So I decided to research further on the computer. Nothing unusual happened until then."

"After that point?"

"See, that's the problem. I can't pinpoint anything specific. It's just that I feel as if…as if…I don't know…I can't explain it."

"Make an attempt," Mrs. Frederic prompted again with a slight frown on her face.

Beginning to pace, Artie waved one hand as if swatting away annoying little blood suckers. "Nothing seems right. Things that should be familiar are and yet…aren't. My logical mind is telling me everything fits the status quo but I also feel as if…" His brown eyes looked as if they were viewing things no one else could possible see."

"Focus, please."

"Oh, uh, right. Have you ever looked at something you've seen a hundred times and yet feel like you're looking at things for the first time?"

"Are we talking 'mindfulness' experiences?"

"No, not that. More like déjà vu but…not."

Mrs. Frederic moved to the nearest chair and sat with steepled fingers before her lips. She was getting nowhere and didn't like it. Unless sidetracked by his own hyperactive mind, Arthur Nielsen was generally articulate when imparting crucial information. But at that moment, he was definitely in need of help.

"You feel as though you've done these things before-?"

Artie blinked and wondered why she questioned something she already knew. "Yes, of course, every day for the last thirty years…with some changes in technology and routi—"

She held up a hand to stop him. "I meant true déjà vu with sensations of precognition attached to it."

"No, not precognition…exactly. I feel like. Damn," he swore softly under his breath. "Okay, here goes. I'll just say it. It feels some of the things I'm seeing don't seem right. As if I know what's supposed to be going on around me and it is, sort of…no, that's not helping. Maybe I should say that while everything appears normal on one level, on another level, nothing is the way it should be."

"Can you be more specific?" The serious expression on her face wavered into curiosity.

"My first thought after looking at the Illinois lead was that I should send Pete and Myka to check it out."

"The two people in the dossiers."

"Exactly! It was like they were my agents. But then I realized that wasn't true, so I decided to check into who they actually were in order to figure out why they came to mind."

Mrs. Frederic nodded. "I'm following you so far."

"And when I turned to look at the office, I felt as if it was…all wrong. The set up. The people. I mean, I knew the faces well, yet at the same moment they didn't seem familiar. How is that possible?"

"I don't know," was all she could say. If she'd been in another line of work, she would have assumed that the stress of the job had warped Agent Nielsen's sense of reality and it was time for him to get professional help. But this was Warehouse 16 and there were many objects below their feet that might possibly alter someone's perceptions.

Of course, she wasn't going to rule out the need for a psych eval. It wouldn't been the first time that agents went mad. In fact, it happened far more often than she liked to admit. Death, disappearance, dementia, the dreaded three D's that claimed most agents within five years of working on the Warehouse payroll. Artie's thirty years on the job certainly didn't preclude the likelihood that he'd finally succumbed to the last of the three.

Being a trained and astute observer of body language, Artie knew exactly where his superior's thoughts were headed and didn't like it one bit. He wasn't going crazy. He didn't know how he knew it, he just did. So he tried again, hoping it didn't sound even nuttier than before.

"What's below us?" he inquired mildly.

"You know what's down there, Arthur."

He shrugged one shoulder. "Humor me."

She decided to indulge him. "The Warehouse."

"What if I told you that I am aware of that and yet I keep expecting it to be somewhere else. Looking different."

"Different in what way?"

"We hide here, in the middle of Minneapolis, in plain sight because…why? No one would expect it to be there." He jabbed his finger for emphasis. "And yet a part of me knows that's somehow wrong. That the Warehouse is supposed to be in the middle of nowhere." He glanced at her pointedly. "Our Warehouse is beneath a complex of buildings with this structure used for offices and exercise rooms, labs and medical services, and bedrooms for the agents. And I keep feeling like I normally sleep somewhere not connected to the Warehouse itself."

He walked to the window again. "I wish I could explain this better."

"And it started today?"

"Yes."

"After getting on the computer?" Mrs. Frederic asked though this time it was more a statement than a question.

Artie nodded. "My first inclination was to wonder if someone has embedded a subliminal message into a particular website, but that can't be the problem. Our firewall is impenetrable. That's hardly news to you. Besides, I always run everything through scans before I open any of it. The few sites I checked were totally clean. No red flags."

Mrs. Frederic joined him near the window and glanced out at the clouding skies. Her lips were pulled tightly together. "Perhaps you should go downstairs and check the older artifact logs since we haven't gotten everything scanned into the databases. The written and typed logs may yield a potential culprit for what you're experiencing."

"Scanning will take years," he informed her dryly, changing the subject. He knew this better than anyone except for the woman standing before him. Only agents with the proper clearance could access the lower levels and they were few and far between. A handful of people scanning countless thousands of printed and handwritten pages would most certainly take 'years' beyond the preceding ones already dedicated to the task.

"Indeed," the stern faced woman said and she reached out to grab his elbow. "Never-the-less, why don't you head down and see if your…symptoms…are discussed anywhere. Just don't lose yourself down there because you have several agents going out into the field who will need monitoring."

"Which I can do just as well from the subsidiary office," he needlessly reminded her.

She nodded her acquiescence. "Keep me posted." She turned back to the window and Artie knew he'd just been dismissed.

Slipping inside the elevator, he turned to face the woman who'd single-handedly kept him from spending the rest of his life in prison. And he wasn't at all surprised when he noted she was no longer there.


	4. Chapter 4

CHAPTER 4

A walk in the vanishing sunshine in order to ease his troubled mind sounded mighty good to him at that moment, but Nielsen punched in another code, heard the confirmation beep, then knuckled the button for sublevel A. He felt the car shift beneath his sneakered feet and he shifted his weight from one foot to the other several times before it stopped.

The doors parted and he stepped into a small well lit antechamber. Two black-suited men stood directly in front of him, the muzzles of their M-16s pointed directly at Artie's chest. As soon as they confirmed it was him, they relaxed and lowered the barrels of their weapons. The taller of the two returned to his desk which sported a monitor that held surveillance displays. Artie's ride down had not gone unnoticed but they were trained to take no chances and he never took offense at their state of readiness. The shorter, stockier man stood against the side wall no longer acknowledging the newcomers presence.

"You know the drill Agent Nielsen," the seated man told him.

Removing his Sig Sauer sidearm and holster from its place at his hip Artie walked to a wall unit with small vaults lined up one on top of the other. Selecting one at eye level, he placed his thumb on the print reader. A heavy metal door swung open and he put the gun and holster inside. After assuring the door was locked again, he proceeded to the next phase.

The next room, much smaller than the first was little more than a hallway with a glass enclosed circular device. He stood staring at it a second as if seeing it for the first time, which his conscious thoughts reminded him was silly. This machine was a more sophisticated millimeter wave body scanner than was commonly found at airports but served the same purpose.

Letting his chin drop for a few moments, Artie shuffled over to the door which opened automatically. He knew the technician agent reading the device was somewhere out of sight but close by and ready to call in 'the dogs' if anything was out of the ordinary.

No one came or went beyond this point without going through the scanner first. It was the most foolproof method they had for preventing 'borrowing' of the items stored below. Only those items requisitioned directly by Mrs. Frederic ever made it back up that elevator although he had been the courier of such things on more occasions than he could quickly remember.

Stifling a groan he stepped forward, automatically raising his hands. Inwardly he cringed. He hated the device. Silently he hoped there wasn't a female agent on the other end of this thing. At the airports they didn't know who was being scanned, but in this place, there were no secrets, especially after someone went through the 3-D imager. Another difference and source of embarrassment for several of the agents, male and female alike, was that here, the scans were kept for a period of time in case any questions arose about those accessing the sublevels.

Self-consciously, he looked down at himself, leaning forward slightly to find his feet. "Stand straight," a voice prompted.

_Of course_, he thought. _It had to be female. What else. _

"Hands higher," she blandly ordered. "Feet apart."

With a sigh, the hands went higher. He knew the routine but deep down spreading his legs inside this thing always made him feel vulnerable and he had to push himself to part his legs farther than they already were.

As the scanning panels moved around him, his mind mentally pictured what she was seeing on the other end, the three dimensional image of an out of shape, overweight, 55 year old body sans every shred of clothing except for the belt which he was told always showed up as a darker band around the waist.

He consoled himself somewhat by doing what he always did, remembering that at least this machine wasn't bombarding his aged cells with doses of radiation. It was true that the amount was negligible but he had to pass through this thing several times a day and it added up, that much was sure. It was the primary reason they used a scanner employing radio waves to create the image.

"You're clear," the pleasant voice informed him.

"Of course," he muttered under his breath as he poked his glasses back into place and tugged his oversized Henley shirt back down to thigh level.

He continued his journey across the umbilicus with its pillars warning of explosives that could be triggered if anyone without clearance got past the guards. Small doses of napalm would burn intruders to a cinder and take down the umbilicus itself to keep anyone from accessing the sublevels in that manner. Escape routes out of each of the four buildings surrounding the giant storage facility could be used but only for the purpose intended. There was no way in, at least not without attracting a lot of attention, provided thieves could find the escape hatches in the first place.

The Regents took it to heart that anything could happen, either through direct attacks or through subterfuge by rogue agents. It had been for the latter reason that the body scanners had been installed. No weapons in, no artifacts out was the mantra for all agents except him. Still, not even he could bring a gun down there, not that he wanted it. He always had a preference for the Tesla anyway

Agent Nielsen stepped slowly to the next door. It opened easily for him with a hiss of pressurized air. Some small voice in his head made him turn to look at the way he had come. Everything continued to feel so familiar and yet so new. Silently, he breathed a prayer to a God he didn't particularly believe in, hoping the answer to his dilemma wouldn't elude him for long. The solution had to be down there somewhere because he was damn sure he wasn't going crazy. After thirty years of retrieving artifacts, sometimes to his own detriment, he knew something as ridiculous as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder wasn't going to take him down now, certainly not without a helluva lot of provocation.

Breezing across the threshold, he observed the change in lighting, more subdued and incandescent in nature rather than the fluorescents so commonly used elsewhere.

A tell slender form strolled over and patted him on the shoulder. "Ah, Arthur, how wonderful of you to join us," the accented voice said. There was no hiding the humorous inflection to his words, sarcasm not withstanding.

"Ja-james," Nielsen stuttered as his world spun, more out of control than at any point since walking to his desk this morning.

A broad grin spread across the man's features. "So what brings you to the dungeons this fine morning?"

On one hand, Artie knew he could trust this man with his life. They'd been saving each other's behinds for most of their time as agents. On the other hand, Artie knew…what? That he couldn't be trusted. That he had done…something...

horrible. That he was no longer among the living. He knew this with a certainty and yet here was the man, alive and obviously quite healthy right here before him.

"Arthur, you look bloody awful. If I didn't know better, I'd say you look as if you just saw a ghost."

"You have no idea," Artie whispered beneath his breath but to James MacPherson, his partner and closest friend, he said, "Rough morning, sorry."

Long fingers pushed his thick straight gray streaked hair back from his eyes. "Do tell. Care to fill me in? I've been stuck down here for days and could use a little gossip to ease the boredom."

Shaking his head slowly, he studied the man in front of him, noting the wedding band. "Why don't you fill me in on…your gossip. How is everyone?"

"Not much different than yesterday, old friend," James said, patting his shoulder hard enough to produce a loud clapping sound.

"Humor me," Artie said with no expression on his face.

"Carol changed jobs, as you know. She likes it well enough." He peered at Artie again. "You sure you're alright?" His British accent thickened as it always did when he was concerned.

"Yeah, fine. Go on." He was not going to admit that a frisson of electricity was racing up and down his spine.

This partner who was somehow not his partner chose to comply with the request rather than pursue the real issue. "Nigel just made the varsity hockey team, if you can believe that." He laughed briefly as if he didn't believe it himself. Of course, this was Minneapolis so he shouldn't have been surprised. "His grades are decent although they could be better. And your brilliant name sake is wondering when his godfather is going to come by for a visit. He enjoyed your last outing you know."

Artie nodded at the news. He recalled the event as if seeing it through a thin veil. His mind argued that there should be no Arthur MacPherson at all. And for some reason his heart lurched painfully at the thought of visiting their house even though he'd gotten over Carol so long ago.

"Glad to hear it," he told James with a forced half-smile. "Uh, listen, I've got something that needs looking into ASAP so I'd best get moving." He turned to leave without saying another word.

"Want help?" his old friend asked, concern still tingeing his voice.

Artie turned to look at him again. "No no no," he assured him with a quick wave of his hand. "I can handle it. Tell everyone I said 'hi' and I'll be by soon."

James wandered through the doors toward the body scanner and Artie moved over to the computer on the ancient desk a few paces away. This place felt like home, he decided. Whatever was provoking these strange sensations, this office wasn't part of it. At least not completely. There were some things that didn't feel right but they were minor changes compared to what he'd been experiencing topside.

There were artifacts everywhere, helmets, a full suit of armor, ancient weapons and something that looked like an enormous adding machine. The design seemed straight out of a Jules Verne novel. There were several computers on two desks. Two were regular laptops and the last one had no discernible tower and looked like it was invented in the 1850s but in reality was linked to one of the world's most sophisticated mainframes.

There was only one other body in the office. Artie recognized him. Brian O'Leary, UCLA grad, cum laude, all star full back, Heisman trophy winner, Army Ranger and finally FBI until he'd been drafted into serving his country in a whole new way. The guy had it all in the looks department too. Eyes that women might have termed mint green shone from a face that belonged on the cover of GQ. His wavy auburn hair, cut a bit long by government standards, was just wild enough to be called 'sexy' rather than unkempt. Twin dimples appeared with little effort and he knew how to use them to good effect. Worst of all, at least as far as the single males working there were concerned, the guy was humble and unassuming. In other words, they felt threatened by the guy because most of the unattached women would have killed for a date with him.

Despite all that, Artie, who was most decidedly still single although he'd rather not have been, actually liked the guy. Perhaps it was because he had no interest in dating any of the female coworkers. Too messy in the event of a breakup. And so he felt no sense of competition with the man, making it easier to maintain a professional relationship with him.

As if aware of this perusal, Agent O'Leary turned to smile radiantly at Artie. "Greetings, Chief," he said in a surprisingly deep voice. "Where you headed this morning?" He glanced at his watch. "Oops, almost lunch time. Perhaps I should say where you headed this _afternoon_?"

"To the library."

"Mind if I tag along? I have to get to Delta 4, Paris 4207841. I figured we can share the Maglev part of the way."

Artie didn't answer right away. Instead he went to stand on the platform overlooking sub level 2. It was an enormous space lit by fixtures holding _Shelby bulbs. _ Both halves of his mind confirmed the identification, relaxing around this little token of commonality between what his eyes were seeing and what his mind said should be seen.

He drank in the sight. Shelving ran far into the distance until he was barely able to see the far wall. He knew each of the six levels below this were exactly the same. Every level except for the entry was approximately the size of several city blocks. He thought of the history of the Warehouse, trying to imagine constructing something so large and so deep back before World War I. The part of the city hadn't been anything more than farms at the time. But they'd dug and developed, put up office buildings and parking lots over the whole thing. Eventually they tore those surface buildings down and upgraded with newer and more modern facilities, all under the guise of economic advancement in one of the bedroom communities of Minneapolis. Before long, it was Minneapolis proper. And no one living remembered what lay beneath their feet. The businesses who rented office space couldn't have cared less. The employees in those offices were totally oblivious. They didn't much care for working next to the IRS facility but as long as they got a paycheck and could go home to family and friends, they didn't truly care who their 'neighbor' was.

"Chief? You hear me?" There was that same note of concern.

"What? Oh, uh yeah, fine…fine." The truth was that he wasn't in the mood for any company at all but giving permission to share one of the maglev trams would keep him from having to concoct a plausible denial.


	5. Chapter 5

CHAPTER 5

The walk there was fairly short. It was intentionally designed to make a full circle between all sectors of the Warehouse via shielded tubes. Warehouse agents discovered the hard way that the magnetic energies from the maglev system ramped up activity levels of those artifacts closest to the tram. Since the little vehicles didn't stick around long in any one spot, it never became a huge problem but with substructures full of the weird and strange, they wanted the artifacts to stay as calm and undisturbed as possible.

"Let me get that," O'Leary said, entering the arched opening in the 'tunnel' and climbed into the waiting car which resting quietly on its single rail.

Both men walked in and sat on the nearest cushioned seats. It only held four passengers but that was sufficient. It was rare to have no more than two or three agents down in the entire Warehouse complex, as long as one didn't count Leena, their librarian, who would sometimes stay down there for what amounted to double shifts, only breaking for meals. There were several comfortable sofas and chairs spaced out around the enormous room. On late nights, Artie would occasionally find her sacked out on one of them and he'd wake her with a gentle reminder that she had a perfectly good room waiting for her upstairs.

Unlike the high-speed 'bullet trains' in the US and various other countries, this tram was based on the original design, built more for energy efficiency rather than time management. At its slowest speeds, the tram still only took about thirty seconds to get from one building to the other. An entire circuit lasted less than four minutes if one counted a stop at each entry/exit area. In any case it was convenient. Artie enjoyed the respite because he'd end up walking plenty on most trips down there anyway.

Gazing out the front window, O'Leary, only on the job two months, commented, "This thing is pretty neat."

Artie unconsciously lapsed into teaching mode. "This version was developed by Eric Laithwaite in the late 1940s based on earlier patents submitted by Hermann Kemper in 1938 and uh…1943." 

"1939 and 1941," O'Leary corrected. Seeing Artie's glare, he made a palms up in surrender gesture. "Hey, that's what MacPherson said."

Artie grumbled under his breath and continued his instruction because he simply couldn't help himself. He was quite aware that most of the other agents teased him by calling him 'professor' Nielsen because of his unintentional lapses into explaining things in more detail than they wanted to hear. Therefore, he kept right on going. "This particular model was upgraded around 1960 using static magnets mounted on the train itself.

"Are you sure about that date?" O'Leary asked while trying to hide a smile. Agent Nielsen may be a font of information on people, places and events but it wasn't unusual for him to screw up his dates by a few years.

Rounding on him, Artie said to the ceiling, "Why am I wasting my time if you know all this already?"

A brilliant white grin flashed at him. "Because I don't mind the refresher. And neither should you."

That did it. Artie could only stare at him, open-mouthed. His mind furiously looked for a suitable retort but the tram had arrived at its destination and the second it stopped O'Leary vaulted out. He was still chuckling as he swaggered off.

Artie set the guided tram back into motion and took it to the next sector. His mind thought about the insolent puppy he'd just left behind and marveled at the fact that the new agents seemed to be getting younger and younger every year. Of course, that part was true, more or less as was the fact that they were certainly getting less respectful. Then again, he hadn't been a paragon of professionalism, diligence or submission either. He and James had been herded up to Mrs. Frederic's office more times than he cared to recall and the thought of it made him smile. He was still smiling as he strolled down the stacks and rode the elevator down one more level.

The library level door also opened with a loud hiss of backpressure. Temperature controlled, humidity controlled, designed to keep out pests and rodents, the entire floor housed a collection of reference books to rival that of the Library of Congress. Books dated back hundreds of years. There were scrolls from Alexandria and ancient Egypt in a special vault to prevent deterioration. They rested near Asian books made out of square reeds bound together and rolled up. And Leena seemed to know where each and every one was.

Artie pressed the intercom button and called her name. There was no reply, which meant several things. She may have actually gone up to eat in the cafeteria. The first two floors of the IRS building did house a small troupe of data entry people. The fact that the upper floors were inaccessible to them didn't bother them a bit. And so Warehouse agents, their support staff, and a couple of lab technicians were free to mingle in the cafeteria. But Leena really did enjoy the solitude of the library and preferred to eat there.

There was another possibility to explain her absence. She had special abilities that the Warehouse valued, the primary one being that she had a sixth sense about where to place incoming artifacts so that they wouldn't accidentally interact with neighboring items. That kept static discharges to a minimum, something all the agents appreciated.

"You okay?" a feminine voice said from the doorway as it swung outward into the main warehouse area. "Your aura is…confused. If I didn't know better I'd swear you were developing MPD on me." The light skinned African American woman bestowed a wry smile on him but there was a hint of worry in her dark eyes.

"DID," he said.

"Did what?" she asked, totally confused.

He smirked slightly. "If we're going to be PC about this, it's now called D.I.D., Disassociative Identity Disorder. And at least that would be an easy solution to my problem. Some counseling, massive doses of psychotropic drugs, and I'd be as good as new."

One of Leena's sculpted eyebrows raised. "Really?"

Artie thought about making another joke about it all but knew that wouldn't work with this woman. Reading the colors of his aura, a thing he couldn't influence, would tell her something was off, even if she didn't specifically know what it was.

Opting for the truth, he gave a self-deprecating shake of his head and said, "Today I really _do_ feel like I have a disassociative condition. These constant flashes of déjà vu are driving me crazy. It's been like-" he rolled his brown eyes skyward as he sought a way to describe it, "like someone else is looking out of my eyes and is not happy with what they see."

Leena's eyes narrowed as if she were trying to look beyond his eyes into the very center of his being. "When did it start? Specifically, I mean."

"Everything was fine until I got to my work station. Nothing out of the ordinary happened." He leaned back on the sofa, putting both hands behind his head so that his elbows jutted out. It also made it harder to look at his confidante. "Did the usual stuff. Made myself a cup of coffee when I got here. Took it to the desk. Fired up 'old faithful' who wasn't being terribly faithful now that I think about it, it was –"

Accustomed to his chasing rabbits, Leena steered him back on track. "Still no funny feelings?"

Artie took no offense at her redirecting him. "We're still tracking 'he who shall not be tamed', therefore, that was the first order of business."

"Okaaaayyyy," Leena drawled out the word. "Reading too much Harry Potter lately?"

A tight smile tugged at the right corner of his mouth. "Hardly. I'm referring to our Rogue Warrior."

"Who?"

Since she still sounded confused, he explained. "You know. Jack Junior."

"Oh. Him. Okay, now we're on the same page." She went to the mini frig neatly tucked into a corner by her desk, and pulled out two old fashioned bottles of coke. Artie didn't need the sugar. He was already too hyper and, worse, agitated but she gave it to him anyway.

Nielsen up-ended the bottle, contemplated it a second and took a substantial swallow of the liquid. "Been a while since I've had one of these." He flicked the classic bottle the neck with the back of his finger as one would a syringe.

Masking a long-suffering sigh by stretching, Leena modulated her tone so that it became soothing and yet encouraged discourse. It was her 'therapist' voice. Being a virtual hermit inside the Warehouse library, she didn't get to exercise her skills all that often but this man clearly needed someone to act as a sounding board. She didn't mind. Artie may have been ill-humored and all-business most of the time, but she liked him anyway. His aura, the thing he could hide from others but never from her, revealed a person who cared deeply and loved faithfully. No matter what persona he showed to other people, she knew the truth. And she also knew helping him now was one way to keep his protective shell from growing thicker which, in the end, would make him more effective. Accomplishing that earned her points with Mrs. Frederic which was _never_ a bad thing.

"Artie, what happened after you started working?"

He turned confused eyes on her. "Same old thing. I was ordered to find Jack and—"

"Jack Secord?"

"Yes, Secord. The kid, remember? Went rogue about fifteen years back. Been off the grid for most of the intervening years. I told you about this."

Leena's tight ringlets swayed as she shook her head. "Only a few pieces here and there. I wasn't here at the time, so I only pick up what the others have said and the little you've told me. I remember you said there was a big argument over it. He didn't think keeping all of the artifacts down here was such a good thing."

"He believed some of them would be useful—

Voice growing more animated, Artie replied, "Precisely! He thought that my using some of them in the course of my duties was a prime example of how others could benefit. Things only got worse from there. There were constant arguments over it. It was believed he was snagging artifacts, claiming they'd been destroyed, and keeping them for himself."

"Right, you've said as much." The even waves of his aura told her this wasn't connected to his current problem, at least she didn't think so, but at least he was talking freely now. "And they found out the truth. But before anyone could arrest him, he used Harriet Tubman's thimble to escape."

"Yeah. That's the abbreviated story." He waved several fingers in the general direction of the unseen equipment. After taking a few more small sips of the nearly empty bottle, he added, "But you didn't get the details. We also discovered that he'd used the Pearl of Wisdom on Agent Rivera. You remember her. First name was Bernadette."

Nodding, Leena said, "I do. She was transferred out last year."

"That's because Secord may be long gone from here but he was using her, via the pearl, to pull artifacts for him and transport them outside the facility. And that's the primary reason the Regents ordered installation of a body scanner plus upgrades to the biometric readers."

"That didn't help poor Bernadette," she mused then winced. She hadn't meant to voice that out loud.

Artie scratched his temple with one forefinger. "Not at the time. But she did get an extended vacation, courtesy of the Secret Service, to get some much needed R&R."

Leena cast a jaundiced eye on him at that. She could read between the lines better than anyone except maybe Artie and Mrs. Frederic. "After the doctors had their fun with her you mean."

It was Artie's turn to throw a hard look at her. "You know I wouldn't lie to you. And I'm telling you now, she's fine. She could have come back. She chose not to. I can't say I blame her. The ordeal left her feeling powerless and full of self-doubts. So she made the decision to stay away."

_Powerless_, Leena thought. _Inadequate_. The retelling of this story was causing ripples of doubt to weaken the light of his aura and she sensed it wasn't old wounds causing it. Rather, something about his current dilemma was bringing those emotions to the fore. She decided to steer the conversation in that direction.

As she collected his empty bottle and set it on the floor, she stated, "So, back to your computer. You said you were looking up information trying to track Secord."

Aura wavering even more, Artie bobbed his chin one time. "Seems Jack Jr. has been a busy boy. Trying to sell off artifacts to the highest bidder."

"For the money?"

Artie shrugged broad shoulders. "Who knows with that kid."

"He's not that much younger than you," she reminded him with a small grin. "Has he been in touch with his mom?"

"Rebecca isn't saying. Not that it surprises me. She blames this place for taking both her husband and her son away from her. She never forgave Mrs. Frederic for hiring him on either." He paused and his eyes went glassy as he dredged up details of the story. "But the fault isn't Mrs. Frederic's. He'd heard enough about the work his parents did to make the job seem irresistible. Anyway, after he went into hiding, he avoided contact with all family and friends. Nevertheless, if he has somehow managed to circumvent our surveillance, Rebecca would never betray her one and only child."

"How close are you to finding him?"

Artie's voice deepened to a near growl. "Not as close as I'd like." He shifted in his seat, making the faux leather covering creak. "But he won't keep me off his back for long. I _will_ get him."

"And then what? The Bronze Sector?" Leena wrinkled her lip in distaste as she said it. She loathed getting anywhere near that area. The auras of those encased in the micro-thin sheeting of bronze weren't visible but her fine-tuned senses still detected their individual presences, each one slowly going insane from total sensory isolation.

That brought Artie out of his slumped position. "No. I promised Rebecca I'd try to keep that from happening."

Leena watched his aura wavering like an unsteady heartbeat. "Can you keep that promise?"

"Depends on whether or not he's killed anyone," Artie explained dryly.

_Enough of talking old news_, Leena thought. _Time to get down to whatever is bothering him_. "Does any of this have to do with your current problem?"

Cinnamon brown eyes darted her way. "I doubt it. But where this place is concerned, you can never rule anything out."

Catching the corner of her lip between very white teeth, she pondered this statement. She'd heard it from time to time, but only from other agents who'd thought it funny to parrot their boss. Apparently it was advice he gave during those times when they had difficulty figuring out what artifacts were provoking dangerous situations. However, this was the first time she'd heard it directly and that had her thinking about what he called the whole "snag, bag and tag" process.

"Go over this with me, again. You said you came in and everything was 'normal', or as normal as your job and this place ever gets."

She said it in such a calm and matter-of-fact way that it elicited a quick upturning of the corners of his mouth. "More or less, yeah."

"You start your man-hunt."

"Um-hmm." Poking his glasses back into place, he moved his head from side to side as if his neck was aching. Realizing he was supposed to move on with the story, he obliged. "I got my special sites up. Plugged in the key words I wanted and began narrowing the search from there. And then, then—"

As Artie's voice trailed off, Leena watch him, using both the standard visual spectrum and her enhanced abilities as well. She noted the fluttering of the constantly shifting colors, paying attention to which colors wavered and which didn't. She was close now and wasn't about to let him stop.

"Then?" she said, encouraging him.

"Hmm? Oh, um, I realized after a short time that my eyes were playing games with my mind. Or maybe it's the other way around." He waved a dismissive hand. "Whatever. Everything seemed perfectly normal and yet totally unfamiliar at the same time."

"What do you mean by everything?"

"Everything…well, most things. The majority of the people I saw, the offices, the Warehouse."

"Really? The Warehouse too?" She was surprised at that although she wasn't sure why.

Artie pointed around the whole library in such a dramatic sweeping motion that she understood he was going beyond those walls with his gesture. "The whole set up is very recognizable. I know it as well as I know my own name."

"That was changed ages ago," she reminded him wryly. She knew the name he'd borne for 30 years wasn't truly his. The story of his past had been revealed several years ago when the son of an old Russian contact had kidnapped him just for the pleasure of torturing and killing him.

He cast a jaundiced eye upon her. "You know what I mean. What I was going to say is I know everything here and yet I seem to be seeing it all for the first time. Worse than that, I feel as if history itself has changed."

Leena felt a shiver claw its way up her spine. "How so?"

Answering a question with a question, he said, "Do you know who I spoke to on the way down here today?"

"No, who?"

"James MacPherson."

"What's unusual about that?" Suddenly, she was scared to hear what he was going to say. Nor did he disappoint her.

He ran his tongue over his lower lip and looked at her, a stare so intense she saw those eyes pleading for understanding. "He's dead, Leena. Don't ask me how I know this. I just do. And yet there he was this morning . I can't discount the evidence of what my eyes or ears were telling me thirty minutes ago."

"And you've explained this to Mrs. Frederic?" She asked in a calming voice.

"More or less." He got to his feet, groaning slightly with the effort of lifting his body and his weighty thoughts. "I've got research to do and the sooner I get it started the better."


	6. Chapter 6

CHAPTER 6

"Any luck?" Pete asked once he'd secured the wandering artifact into its place on the shelf and returned to the office.

Myka dropped the open book she was looking at onto Artie's desk. "Not yet. I was going to check the card catalog too, but I'm not convinced we'll find anything useful, at least not quickly. I haven't quite figured out Artie's filing methods."

"Pity Claudia isn't here," muttered Pete.

Myka turned to face him, her head cocked slightly onto her left shoulder in curiosity. "What makes you think she'd know where to look or what to look for?"

"Because Artie always tells her to clean up after he's made a mess of the place. I used to think he did it to annoy her or keep her out of trouble somewhere else, but now I'm wondering if it wasn't some Karate Kid kind of thing."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"You know, pick up, read card, memorize, put away. Repeat."

Smiling radiantly, Myka clapped her hands in genteel approval. "Splendid idea."

Pete turned a confused frown toward her. "It was?"

"Sure! Gimme a sec." She grabbed the Farnsworth off the desk and opened it. In seconds, Claudia's gray-tone face drifted into view. "How's Joshua?" Myka started conversationally.

"Great. You know how much I miss him." She stopped and narrowed her eyes. "What's wrong?"

Hiding a smile, Myka innocently said, "What makes you think anything's wrong?"

"First of all, if Artie was calling, it would be to check up on me. Pete would call to tease me. But you? You'd leave me alone to enjoy myself unless something was wrong. So tell me."

"You are starting to sound like Artie," Myka said, rewarding Claudia with a pained smile.

The teenager didn't miss a beat. "Something bad's happened, hasn't it." She made it comment rather than a question. "Who is it? Artie? Pete? Leena?"

"Artie," confirmed Myka. "He disappeared."

"As in "Gone to Vegas" without telling anyone, gone? Or as in AWOL and even Mrs. Frederic is worried 'gone'."

"Definitely the latter," Pete said from over Myka's shoulder. "Ever seen a hysterical Mrs. F?"

Claudia grimaced. "No, what was it like?"

"Only slightly more frightening than she normally is," Pete muttered.

"In other words, she hid it well?"

"Yup, very well—"

Myka cut in. "-but we could tell she wasn't happy, and if she isn't happy, she's definitely going to make the rest of us miserable until we rectify the situation."

"Yeah, that sounds like her alright. So what do you need from me? Want me to come home?"

"No," both agents chorused. "We just need some information and thought you could pass it along long-distance."

Nudging her hair back behind her ears, she leaned in so that only the oval of her face appeared. "Sure thing, go ahead."

They related what had happened that day and ended with their request. Claudia listened intently, far more silent than usual. Occasionally her eyes rolled upward as she thought about all the possible artifacts that might be the culprit. Gradually her buoyant expression melted into depression.

"Sorry guys. I can't think of anything freaky that would kidnap Artie right out of the Warehouse like you described."

She clearly sat down because the poster in the background rose up precipitously. "Are you sure it's something one of our artifacts that did it. Could something on the outside be responsible?"

Shaking her head slowly, Myka said, "Anything is possible, but I'd hoped to work with an artifact we know a little about rather than one we know nothing about. I'm sure wherever Artie is, he would love to be back here sooner rather than later." She didn't say it was possible Artie was dead. No way would she go there. She wouldn't even let her mind consider that possibility. But the thought had crossed Claudia's mind. It was written all over her face.

"I'm coming home," the teenager said again.

Myka forced her voice to sound reasonable. "Claudia, stay with Joshua. Let us work on this a bit. I promise I'll call if I need you here, okay?"

Claudia didn't sound convinced and she didn't sound happy when she finally said, "Fine! But I'm gonna be really pissed if you want help and don't ask me. It's not like I'm gonna have a wonderful time now anyway."

"I promise, we'll call you back if necessary. And I'll try to keep you updated in the meantime."

Myka made her farewells and closed the Farnsworth with a gentle click. "Just you and me, Pete," she intoned mournfully.

"Any suggestions on where to start aside from playing pin the tail on the card catalog drawers?"

Artie had set the extensive card catalog reference system, roughly speaking, into three divisions. The first was a hard copy reference of many older artifacts stored in the warehouse, including the procurement date, its special properties, how it was activated, and who may have invented it or influenced its formation. In addition, it would list whether it was a multi-part artifact and finally, shelf locations. Sometimes these cards also contained any deaths it caused and brief details of how it was obtained…but not usually.

The second section housed information on those artifacts that were known or suspected but were still 'in the wild' as Artie referred to them. The last section, by far the smallest and with sparse information, was the mythological or legendary references that may have been influenced by artifacts but no one could say for sure. Artie's explanation for that had been to reference Odin's bracelets which had the power to pull down and redirect the power of the storms, much like the powers supposedly possessed by Zeus. It may have been in myth but there was nothing other than obviously non-historical accounts about them. Therefore, the reference also ended up in this catalog.

It was there that Pete decided to start. Myka, trusting Mrs. Frederic's knowledge of captured and stored artifacts didn't bother with searching the computer with the more modern listings or the card catalog with its older information. If she said it wasn't a currently stored artifact, that was good enough for her.

Pulling out the first drawer of known but unsnagged artifacts, she started a quick scan of each, zeroing in on its properties before anything else. Disappearance-after-handling should stick out like a sore thumb, she figured.

After many hours, nothing showed up.

"I give up," Pete finally muttered and moaned as he stood up and hyper-extended his back until she literally heard popping. "I'm getting nowhere."

"Want to switch?"

"No, I want to eat. Can't think if my stomach is talking louder than my brain."

Rolling her eyes, Myka also straightened. "At least this wasn't a total waste. I now know about several hundred more artifacts than I did this morning." Her photographic memory made storing this data easy but she still had to actually read and concentrate on the information to make sure it 'stuck'. "What now?"

Picking up the keys to his truck, Pete turned to her and gestured toward the door. "Eat first, relax second, and pray to every god we can think of in between. Maybe I'll have an epiphany along the way."

"No, Pete, in your case that'd be gas."

Making an exaggerated grin, Pete snorted, "Funny, Mykes. Just for that, it's your treat." And with that said, he walked out, leaving the smile behind him. Myka understood. She was feeling pretty much the same way. She fervently hoped that wherever her boss and 'friend' was, it was someplace 'safe'.


	7. Chapter 7

CHAPTER 7

After a long and exhausting search of the Warehouse records and an equally extensive perusal of the computer files, Artie gave up. He was safe, that much was certain. The flashes of wrongness persisted but weren't overwhelming. They certainly weren't affecting his ability to function or to solve problems logically.

"Arthur?" That familiar voice drifted over to him as he was on his way through the body scanner.

"James. On your way home?"

"As long as you haven't decided to send me after an artifact this late in the day, yes." He smiled as he said it and added. "If that's not the case, then I insist you join us for dinner. The cafeteria food isn't bad but Carol's cooking is better."

"That it is," agreed Artie with a twist of his lips. "But I think I'll pass. I'm beat."

James grabbed him by the elbow as soon as he cleared the scanner's tube. "Hold up now. You don't get away that easy. Come on now. Don't play hard to get with me." He literally dragged Artie to the elevator. "To quote that old commercial, you deserve a break today."

"Now you're making me hungry for some McDaniel's Burgers."

"Good, admitting hunger is the first step. My place is the second. I'll phone Carol and tell her to set out another plate. It's been far too long since we've had an evening to ourselves that didn't involve pounding the pavement after some crazed individual has been messing with an artifact."

Chuckling, Artie patted his shoulder. "Your car or mine?"

"Mine, I just had the Caddy fixed. The AC is working again and I want to enjoy it while it lasts."

The drive to MacPherson's home took a bit longer during rush hour than it normally would have. As James had promised, the summer heat didn't penetrate the interior of the luxury vehicle. It was definitely a pleasure. Artie's red 1950 MG TD roadster was certainly an eye-catcher and very fast but the only sort of air-conditioning it had was when he drove with the ragtop down.

They pulled up to the non-descript split level and both men exited the car. They hadn't gotten more than ten feet up the walk when a tall slender boy of about eleven years old came bolting out the door, leaped down all three steps without touching anything in between, and practically hopped into Artie's arms. Nielsen staggered back a step but didn't get bowled over. He'd expected this greeting. The boy had been doing it since he was a child. But Artie had studiously avoided going over there whenever Carol was home and the kid had certainly grown a bit since the last time he'd been over the house.

"Hey kiddo," Artie said, getting him in a choke-hold and giving him noogies on the top of his head which had the boy howling with glee. "Wow, you've sure gotten taller."

"Yup," Arthur MacPherson said, grinning hugely. "Pretty soon I'll be as tall as you! I bet my shoe size is already bigger."

Glancing down at his feet, no easy effort unless he bent over, he smiled and ruffled the boy's hair again. "I'm afraid that's true. Won't be long before I have to look up to you."

"Come on inside," James told his son with a wave of his hand. "You too, Arthur."

Both Arthurs said 'okay' in unison and walked in the front door.

Dinner was a strained affair, at least for Artie. Carol was still Carol; prim, proper, meticulous in her housekeeping, feminine in style, and somewhat dour. That sour personality wasn't always visible but she would never have been considered an amiable woman even under the best of circumstances. Whenever he came around, she didn't bother to hide her bad mood. He knew why. Their relationship had ended so badly when she'd chosen James over him. The arguments had been ugly, not just with her but between him and his partner as well.

Eventually, he'd gotten out of his funk, but the lingering sense of betrayal had never quite left him. He certainly didn't love her anymore. In fact, he continually wondered what he had ever seen in her in the first place, but the pain of her treachery had stayed with him over the years. James he forgave, grudgingly, but if he was honest with himself, and he was, he still remained unhappy at James' duplicity in the whole affair. In fact, the only reason he showed up at the MacPherson's house was because of James' second son, his godson.

To be fair, Carol did her best to be civil that night. She kept dialog to a minimum but was at least pleasant. There were certain subjects that remained taboo. Their joined past and choices made. The Warehouse. The missions, especially the dangerous ones.

And finally, they avoided questions about who Artie might have been dating currently, although the answer would have always been the same. No one. He'd given that up as being too emotionally painful and too physically difficult. His wife was the Warehouse, his children, the agents who worked for him and he grew content. That being said, there wasn't much for him to talk about when Carol was around. So the topic revolved around the expected.

"Nigel, how are your studies coming?" asked MacPherson after taking a sip of his wine.

The boy, tall, slender, dark haired bore a strong resemblance to his father. "Coming along fine." He saw his father giving him 'the look', the one that said, be honest because if I find out you've lied there will be serious consequences. "Struggling a bit with math though."

"Define a bit." He cut off a healthy chunk of steak and still managed to be delicate about eating it.

"I'm bordering on a D but working on bringing it up." The boy didn't meet his eyes but both men were skilled in reading body language and knew it was the truth.

"Have you considered a tutor?" He didn't offer help. Nigel had proven that he felt parental help was no help at all even if the parent in question knew enough about the topic to instruct him.

"Yeah. Don't worry though. If I let it drop below a C for long, they'll kick me off the team, and I won't let that happen." His determined voice took on a surprising adult tone.

Artie took that as his opportunity to be a good friend, not just to his partner but to the boy. "Want my help? I'm sorta decent at math, ya know."

"How 'sorta'?" Nigel inquired, turning toward him with interested eyes. He didn't know anything about what Artie or his dad truly did but he figured that IRS agents must know something about math. Technically it wouldn't be geometry, but he reasoned that Uncle Artie wouldn't offer unless he knew a little about it.

"Do you know what I did before coming to the IRS?"

The boy shook his head slowly.

"I was a cryptographer. Do you know what that is?"

Nigel did a repeat of the head shake. "Uh-uh."

"Basically, it means that I used advanced mathematics to create algorithms which encrypt or decrypt information."

Nigel's eyes squinted in confusion.

"Okay, we did one of two things. Hide information which was not meant for everyone's eyes or trying to find secrets hidden inside messages from other governments, spies and terrorists."

That did it. Nigel's eyes grew as round as the full moon that would grace the sky that night. "Wow! That sounds very cool. Why'd you quit?"

Artie paused. He didn't want to go there, especially not with this child. It would have been too hard to explain the convoluted sequence of events leading to his illegal activities and the ethical dilemma behind those activities.

"Because I got a promotion and more money to transfer to the IRS." He fluttered his hands in front of his face. "But enough of that. What I'm trying to say is that a person needs either a strong background in math or computer science to be a cryptographer. So yes, I could probably help you."

"Awesome," the teenager said, bolting away from the table, presumably to get his books. As expected he bounded back down the stairs, tossed the text and a notebook on the table, and scooped up his dirty dishes. He vanished into the immaculate kitchen. There was the sound of a dishwasher door opening, the clatter of dishes and silverware and then pounding feet. He was back within a minute.

Forty minutes later, Nigel was well on his way to getting an A on his upcoming test and the two men left him to finish up the remainder of his homework.

James and Artie, carrying glasses of Chardonnay, settled into the recliner and couch respectively. MacPherson turned on the BBCA channel to watch the British version of Being Human. He exposited briefly on the virtues of that one over the American one, and then grew quiet.

After eyeing his friend for several minutes and noting that Artie was total oblivious to this inspection, he said, "Seems to me you have something on your mind. I noticed it earlier but you weren't interested in talking. Has that changed or are you still planning on keeping it to yourself?"

When no answer was forthcoming, he tried again. "Arthur?"

"Hm? Oh, um, what?"

That made James lips pull tight but he still smiled just the tiniest bit. "As usual, I see that keen intellect of yours is functioning within acceptable parameters."

Artie affected a passable British accent. "And I see your sense of humor is still as dry as this Chardonnay."

"Finally starting to appreciate it, are you?"

Screwed up the right side of his face, Artie said. "I admit it's an acquired taste.

"I'll take that as a compliment."

"You shouldn't."

James didn't take offense. This was pretty much par for the course, the friendly banter and tossing of mild barbs a normal part of how they related to each other. "We could go round and round like this, but I'd really rather hear what's on your mind."

Artie debated whether or not to burden his friend with his story. But James was not just an agent. He was a very 'smart' agent. Most of the Warehouse agents were bright. It was necessary for their survival and it was one of the reasons they were chosen for that line of work, but James had been the cream of the crop, surpassing even Artie who was certainly no intellectual lightweight.

Nielsen knew he'd be foolish not to get him involved. The more agents working on the problem, the sooner he'd have an answer. Hopefully. Within the next thirty minutes, he summarized all that had occurred.

"So you see, it's sort of like I'm looking at everything with my "old" eyes but certain people and places are coincidentally being seen with "new" eyes." He struggled once more to find the words. "And events…events also. Sometimes my memory tells me things have changed when other memories tell me that's impossible."

"Shared consciousness perhaps?" James suggested.

"I've already considered that. And done my research. There have been a few artifacts capable of recreating that kind of situation but they're all safely stored away and I've had no contact with any of them. Well, with one exception. There was the pair of bookends that Pete and Myka retrieved several months ago but I never touched them without glov-"

"Who?" inquired James with raised eyebrows.

Artie turned very confused eyes on him. "Never mind. Forget it."

At first it appeared as if MacPherson wanted to pursue it but then let it go. "Okay, let's suppose you _are_ sharing your mind with someone. It begs the question of _who's _in there with you."

When everything had been said, James stood up. "Let me sleep on it but I suggest we meet first thing in the morning at your room. Then recreate your movements from there. We'll head upstairs to your work station. Maybe something will present itself once we look at it from a fresh perspective."


	8. Chapter 8

CHAPTER 8

The knock on Nielsen's door came earlier than expected but he wasn't surprised when he staggered to the door and found MacPherson standing there looking fresh and energetic.

Artie looked down at his form, still clad in pajamas and slippers and shuffled back to his bedroom. As the supervisor of all things Warehouse, second only to Mrs. Frederic, Artie's quarters were more spacious than those of the other agents. He had a sitting room which was decorated with all the typical furniture; couch, recliner, a sizable flat screen TV, and bookcases. There were a fair number of antiquities on display. Tomes and historical collectibles were scattered around the room although none of them had 'special' properties.

The bedroom was also fairly typical. There was a queen size bed covered by a plain comforter which was crumpled up on the bed due to his hasty exit from beneath it. The dresser and armoire were also plain, serviceable and appeared to be quite old but well-cared for, or perhaps restored. The closet door, open, was at odds with the earth tone décor. It was positively crammed with button-down shirts of all colors from the mundane browns and blues to shades of purple and red. Business suits were there as were quite a few pairs of slacks. Shirts of cotton were mixed in with ones of silk. It looked downright chaotic and yet, despite his perpetually rumpled appearance, they always looked pressed while hanging up there.

As he studied the closet and the condition of the clothing therein, James began to wonder if Artie had been sneaking out the prototype of Thomas Sears' iron which, when set on steam function, flawlessly eradicated all wrinkles from garments. The thought made James smile. Artie was a stickler for following the rules. Always had been. Unauthorized removal of artifacts for personal use was not only frowned on but was something Artie continually warned against. Jack Secord Jr. was a prime example of what happened when agents didn't accept the logic behind this rule.

James continued to look around while Artie dressed. His sharp eyes tried to see if anything was out of the ordinary.

Rounding out the 'apartment' was a small kitchenette area and a large bathroom with an oversized tub perfect for stretching out and soaking. Surprisingly, the bathroom had a matching 'day at the beach' theme. But even that was typical. Nothing appeared different. Not that he expected anything of the sort. Clearly, Artie's shifting perceptions had occurred in the office, not in here.

A cup of coffee was set before him at the small table near the kitchenette. "Thanks," he said, taking a cautious sip of the beverage after blowing on it for a minute. "Arthur, please. Relax. You're making _me_ nervous."

Artie watched him take another sip. He knew that his friend didn't mean the daily activities connected to Warehouse work but more specifically working on finding a solution to his problem.

Rising reluctantly to his feet, Artie laid his own cup in the sink. "I'm ready. Let's see if we can figure this out together."

Leaving his mug on the table, James arose and joined him. Artie glanced at the table.

"Aren't you forgetting something?" Nielsen asked, moving his finger in a slow, almost delicate motion toward the cup. "I figured Carole would have broken you of that bad habit by now."

"She has. I only do it here. And only because I know how much it annoys you." Smiling, James pointedly ignored the suggestion to clean up after himself

Exiting first, MacPherson waited for Artie to close the door behind him. There was no 'locking up'. In such a secure place, with all the safeguards in place to keep strangers out, and surrounded by trusted coworkers, no one bothered to worry about protecting their possessions.

After pressing the button and waiting about a minute, the elevator car finally arrived. By then, two other agents, one male, one female, had gathered around, waiting for the same ride up. They made their obligatory greetings, showing Artie more diffidence than MacPherson simply because the shorter, stouter man was their boss. Also, when assignments were handed out, it was wise to suck up now and then in order to get the plum assignments. Every single one of them would prefer a New York or London or Paris assignment over one in the boonies, or the zoos, or worse, the fish canning plant practical joker O'Leary got stuck with one month ago. He came back stinking. Everyone could smell him at thirty paces and no one would go near him for several weeks. And all Artie had done was smile at him.

When everyone had exited the elevator, James trailed Artie to his work area. It was certainly more spacious than the other areas. His desk was circa the 1950s and covered in the usual tools of an agent although Nielsen, as primary researcher, educator, and locator of artifacts had other tools at his disposal not normally placed into the hands of the lesser agents.

There were few individuals on the face of the planet that had the kind of access that Artie did. For one thing, he was able to hack into just about any network in the world, dig up leads, grab videos, texts, photos, and email transmissions of all kinds. That included data from all those initialed organizations everyone knew about such as the FBI, the NIO aka the National Intelligence Organization, or the GDP. Everyone shivered when the Global Defense Directorate was mentioned. Some were so secret not even the Prime Minister of North America was aware they existed. Yet Artie could breeze through their firewalls like no protection existed at all.

To access this data, he had the obligatory keyboard and an oversized Wacom Tablet that made isolating information quicker and easier via gliding fingers rather than poking at keys.

As both men bent over this equipment, neither of them spoke. Other agents noticed their peculiar actions but had no desire to question such bizarre behavior lest it get them assigned to tasks they didn't want, namely redistributing artifacts to more 'compatible' locations under Leena's cool and impersonal direction.

"Look normal?" James inquired, riffling through several blueprints and schematics, stacking them neatly and setting them on one corner of the still-cluttered desk. He shifted the Tiffany lamp back from the brand new state of the art 25" LED monitor and smirked at Artie's incomprehensible sense of style. An iPhone lay beside a 1970's rotary telephone. On the opposite side of the desk, a curved floor lamp with a parchment shade lit up most of the work area.

Artie picked up several books and moved them out of the way. "I didn't touch any of these yesterday." He didn't answer James' question but there was no need. "I'm really not sure what I'm looking for." Artie slid a few papers into a separate pile without really looking at the contents. "I have to confess my memories are …distorted, confused, jumbled together. I'm not sure you should be relying on them."

"What say we test the sharpness of Occam's Razor instead," James explained with a glint in his eyes as he placed one long fingered hand on Nielsen's shoulder. "Surely, old friend, your memory recalls that one."

Nodding, Artie quoted, "Simple explanations are, other things being equal, generally better than more complex ones."

"Or as the commonly quoted, albeit inaccurate, version says, 'the simplest explanation is most likely the correct one." He physically positioned Artie in front of the desk and added, "Why don't you walk me through everything. And let's keep it _simple_, shall we?"


	9. Chapter 9

CHAPTER 9

Leena cleaned up the breakfast dishes at the B & B but didn't speak more than a few cursory words. Her attractive face was pinched with worry. Her body language spoke volumes. She was fretting about Artie's well-being and didn't need to tell anyone about how she felt because their countenances mirrored hers.

"What are your plans now?" Leena inquired softly, using her voice to calm the others even though she was in need of consolation as much as they were.

"Well, we spent the majority of last night running through his actions. Next, we're going to retrace everything again, from beginning to end, paying attention to the smallest details." Myka wiped her full lips with a cloth napkin and delicately set it aside. Each of her movements was deliberate as if she was already working through a script. "Hopefully, we'll get a hint of what he did wrong."

Frowning, Leena said, "What makes you think he did anything wrong. Maybe he did everything 'right' and this still happened. You can't rule out the unexpected."

Taking a seat near them, Leena leaning back in her chair and folding her arms, "Tell me again. What did the durational spectrometer show?"

Pete shrugged. "That he was in his seat one minute and then his scene ended up on the cutting room floor the next. Talk about extreme editing." Lattimer hands performed a credible Edward Scissorhands impersonation. He also couldn't resist embellishing it with sound effects.

Tossing her head back, Myka let her hair flow over the back of the chair. When she straightened again, she replied, "Yeah, what he said. It didn't reveal a thing except for the obvious disappearance." Myka got to her feet, overcome by nervous energy. "We'll just have to keep running through events until something sparks an idea or two."

"And if the sparks aren't flying?"

"Well then, Pete, we'll bring out Occam's Razor?"

"Ouch, that sounds painful."

She smirked at that. Perhaps Pete finding the simplest explanation would be easy since she was always teasing him about being simple minded anyway. She explained the concept to him. He gaze wavered as he tried to figure out if she was insulting him or praising him for possessing an abundance of street smarts. Opting for the latter, he forced a smile and turned his attention to the matter at hand.

Once back in the Warehouse, the duo worked their way slowly around the office since the original viewing of the durational spectrometer had yielded very little beyond the common place. Artie had been at his desk studying the monitor, although from the device's angle, it was impossible to tell what he was looking at.

Artie had leaned back, resting crossing arms over his stomach and turned to watch his two agents work for about ten seconds before getting back to his own tasks. He jotted things down on sticky note pads which Myka already ascertained had no value to the problem at hand. They saw his lips moving and knew he'd muttered a bit to himself which was par for the course. He sipped at coffee a few times then used a spoon to scoop out a speck of dust. Dark liquid with captured speck ended up in the garbage pail. And he went back to fish out another one. Next, he studied the screen, took a drink. Then it was as if someone had tampered with the device to present the illusion of an instantaneous disappearance.

Pete and Myka looked at each other. "A place to start?" she asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Hi ho, hi ho, it's off to work we go," Pete sank, terribly off-key, as they moved over to Artie's desk for a closer look at the few items he'd touched just prior to his disappearance.


	10. Chapter 10

CHAPTER 10

"Not another bloody sidebar, Arthur. Just get on with the demonstration." James was leaning over his much shorter coworker, his dark eyes boring straight into Artie's with such an intensity that Nielsen's head moved back a few inches. It also successfully stopped Artie's nervous pacing.

"You need this information, James."

Scowling, MacPherson rebutted, "No I don't. I want to see what you _did_, not hear what you thought. There's time enough for that part later. _If_ it's needed." He added extra emphasis on the "if'.

Matching his scowl, Artie threw himself back into his desk chair with such force that the chair rolled a good three feet from its original position.

"Alright. Alright. I was sitting here." Artie pointed needlessly to his chair which was once more repositioned in front of the monitor. "I was working on the usual. Same old routine. And suddenly I became aware everything seemed different. That's all I can say. It was like having two movies running side by side but with alterations in the scenes."

"You're giving me commentary again. Don't. Try to remember your actions, step by step." James' voice was overshadowed by an odd tone. "Arthur, stop looking at me like that. It's giving me a case of the willies."

"James, I—"

"No," MacPherson said, throwing up a cautioning hand. "Whatever it is you think you know, I don't want to hear it! Now, let's get on with it."

Blowing out a long slow sigh, Artie reset the items and papers on his desk to pre-event status. And with each motion, he tried to reenact his previous morning. He took each of his stick notes, placed them before him a row and then set about repositioning them again. He reached for his coffee cup and stopped. It wasn't there.

"What?" James inquired, noting the abrupt cessation of movement.

"My coffee cup is gone. I put it in the sink in the break room to wash it and forgot to bring it back in here." Getting to his feet, he hurried to the sink and searched for it. It wasn't on the counter. As if his life depended on it, he frantically threw open cabinet doors looking for it. Suddenly, he located it. Reaching up, he retrieved it and flourished it for his old partner. "See? One coffee mug."

"Okay, fill it and sit down again."

Side by side, both men returned to their office and Artie resumed recreating his routine. He took a few sips of the coffee, grimaced at the bitterness of it, swore to buy his favorite coffee blend, and pulled up his latest search. Secord was still globe-trotting and leaving a little trail of breadcrumbs behind him. Being no fool, Artie turned to MacPherson and pointed, "See where he is now. And you know he's not really there. He's gone to ground after the last time we got too close but he's playing these games as usual."

James' chin dipped once and he ran a long thin finger over the corner of his mouth. "Agreed. I would waste no more time following leads like this." His eyes continued to dart around the desk. "So that's it? This is all you did?"

"Pretty much."

He sounded a bit surly but James took no offense. "This is getting us nowhere."

"Well, it was worth a try," sighed Artie, picking up the mug again. It stopped midway to his lips and even James could see the slight tremor of his hand.

"What? What is it?"

"Look," Artie pointed at the yellow mug, more specifically at the writing on it.

"_What happens when the window between reality and unreality breaks?" _MacPherson read aloud with a clearly puzzled tone in his voice. "Why is that important?" He personally thought it was a creepy saying for a coffee mug but beyond that it set off no alarm bells.

"James, don't you get it? This is it!" Artie's eager voice rose in volume and he squelched the last few words hard enough that his voice grew raspy.

James' lips quirked. "I'm confused, and I never thought I'd hear myself admit that."

Flourishing the mug, Artie said, "The saying here isn't complete. I remember reading it in its entirety. It went, _'What happens to the wide-eyed observer when the window between reality and unreality breaks and the glass begins to fly?'" _Get it?"

"Of course! And I see where this is going. You think that somehow this mug is responsible for altering reality."

"Or literally opening the window between realities. Plural. What if this thing is somehow responsible for creating a portal between our reality and another one with another Artie?"

"What makes you think it's another Artie?"

"Because when I look in the mirror I get that feeling my own image isn't surprising. It's so completely familiar…virtually identical. With two exceptions."

"And they are?" James was clearly curious.

"This other Artie doesn't dress exactly like I do. He seemed surprised by some of the items in my closet. And there was something far more obvious than that."

"Do tell."

"Look at me." Artie smiled.

MacPherson returned the grin. "Yes, so? Am I supposed to be shocked by a smile? I know it's painful for you to grin now and then, but occasionally you do manage it."

"You don't get it. I was brushing my teeth last night and what do most people do afterward? It's a habit, we all do it?"

Shrugging, James said, "Uh, rinse out? Floss?"

"No no no," Artie waved finger at his mouth which was still smiling. "We grin at ourselves to see how we look."

"And?"

"Whatever version of Artie is looking out of my eyes was surprised I could do that. Like he can't. Not fully anyway. I got the sense that he has limited mobility on that side of his face." Artie pointed to his left cheek and waved one thick forefinger up and down the length of his face. "Anyway, one of two things has happened to us. Either we totally merged somehow or his consciousness is now part of mine but his body is elsewhere, probably in the original universe…dimension… whatever. Physicists have been speculating for years that there are universes parallel to our own, layers upon layers of them, infinite in number, each with their own unique timelines. Which would explain…" Artie's voice trailed off and he averted his eyes from his partner's.

MacPherson didn't need to be an expert in reading body language to interpret that expression. "Which would explain why you seemed surprised to see me yesterday in the security checkpoint." He took a deep breath and released it slowly. "I'm not around in that other universe, am I?"

Looking everywhere but at James, Artie finally found his voice. "You were around. He recognized you. But he was surprised…well, it's not important."

"He was surprised to see me alive. Isn't that what you were going to say?" James said it as a question but clearly he knew the answer already.

Artie gulped audibly. "Um, yeah."

"Well at least I had my progeny to follow in my footsteps." The smile he gave Artie was a weak but hopeful one.

Once more unable to meet his gaze, Artie said nothing.

"Arthur?" This time it was a question seeking confirmation.

"Carole I knew. In his reality our mutual past was," he paused to fish for a benign phrase, "the same. You two being married was also familiar."

"And…and my sons?" The fear was evident even though James knew deep down his current reality was totally different from that of the near stranger residing in Artie's head.

All Artie could do at first was shake his head but then he realized how painful silence would be so he finally said, "I don't think you and Carole had children in his universe. I sensed no pain from him when he saw them. Just surprise. Pleasant surprise if you want the truth."

While still experiencing great skepticism about the whole multi-verse concept, MacPherson grunted out his relief. To hear his children were dead in another reality, even a theoretical one, would have given him nightmares for countless months to come.

"Now that we've got some tentative answers, we need to figure out how this transposition took place and—"

"How to reverse it," Artie finished for him.

"Precisely. Let me see the mug." Pulling out purple surgical style gloves from his jacket pocket and donning them, James took the mug out of Artie's bare hands. Oddly, there was no sparking or fireworks. But that meant nothing. Sometimes the neutralizer on the gloves wasn't powerful enough to drain off the energies of an artifact. Also, the real damage had already been done and while nothing more happened when Artie handled it again, James was taking no chances. If the mug was an artifact, it could do anything. And that prompted more questions. He didn't hesitate to ask them.

"Remember who gave this to you?" He waved it before Artie's eyes.

Nielsen shrugged expansively and felt both eyebrows virtually hit his hair line. Yet another difference Artie thought to himself. He had vague recollections that the other Artie was only able to noticeably move the right one. A fleeting question raced through his head as he pondered the cause of such a disability. Was it from a run in with an artifact, or an accident, or a medical condition? Those memories had never surfaced and he never got his answer. Deep down, however, he was sensing the excitement this passenger was feeling. There was eagerness to go 'home' and anticipation that it could happen soon if only the vehicle housing his consciousness would get back to work! Nice!

"It was sitting on my desk in a gift bag the day of my birthday. No gift tag, but I assumed it was an oversight. It's not like someone can walk in off the street and give it to me."

"But your birthday was months ago." James pushed his hair off his forehead and rolled his eyes upward as he pondered this fact. "And yet nothing has happened before now."

Artie rested his elbows on the table, his steepled fingers propping up his goateed chin. "Maybe certain conditions have to be right," he suggested pensively.

Placing the mug back on the desk, James said with great assurance, "I'd agree with you there. So now we need to identify what those conditions were." He pulled up a chair and sat down so that the two friends were facing each other. "You also realize that we'll need to find out who gave that item to you if it does turn out to be an artifact. It may have been an accident or it may have been meant for harm which begs many more questions. But for now I suggest we let it rest."

They both eyed the mug without touching it. Standard protocols insisted that all artifacts or potential artifacts be neutralized immediately. However, the two partners, long involved with artifact retrieval, knew that negating the mysterious properties of the mug might mean the alternate Artie would never get back to where he came from.

"First order of business is to clear the office. Don't you agree?"

"No, if anything was going to happen to them, it would have happened already. At least I think so. If and when we try reversing the process, I'll chase everyone out, including you." He bestowed a pointed look on MacPherson. "But not before then. I don't want to waste time answering a lot of questions that you and I both know will be coming."

Nodding in agreement, James said. "We'll wait on it then. Smart move now that I think about it. If Mrs. Frederic finds out there's someone else in there with you," he gestured toward Artie's head, "she'll quarantine you and let the Warehouse doctors have a field day."

Artie grimaced mightily. There were four doctors assigned to care for the Warehouse staff and the Regents. All of them were cantankerous and impatient except for the one female doctor. She was pleasant but old enough to be his grandmother. Worse, she had the personality of Luna Lovegood from the Harry Potter flicks, which, to his mind, made her professional skills questionable.

After drop kicking those unpleasant thoughts from his brain, Artie informed him, "Time for the instant replay again." He glanced at the message on the mug. "Maybe I had it right before. This may be a reference to a literal doorway between realities. Something happened to break the laws of physics, to penetrate the barrier or 'window' that is supposedly between layers. With that open, his mind somehow made the journey to me rather than the other way around."

"Perhaps a matter of timing?" James supplied. "Maybe you did whatever and then—"

"Or maybe there is no 'and then'." His voice took on an excited edge. "We could have performed the same act at the same time and a bridge was formed."

"Anything is possible," James agreed. "But how did—"

Suddenly, Artie threw his hands wide and blurt out, "The 'windows', James. The eyes are also referred to as windows to the soul. I remember now. Just before this happened, I had glanced down into the coffee and saw my own reflection. Specifically, I was looking into the reflection of my own eyes."

"Well then, for lack of something better, let's go with that. You see your own image. In some other reality, your doppelganger is sipping coffee, probably from the identical artifact and viola, his thoughts, mind, perhaps even corporeal form makes the transition to you. Oh yes, that makes perfect sense."

Artie glared at his friend. There was no mistaking the sarcasm in MacPherson's summation but he let it pass without comment for a few seconds. He studied the mug again. "Since when has anything about artifacts made perfect sense. We can figure out their origins. We can determine what they do easily enough. But you know as well as I do that no one really knows _how_ they work."

"I'll grant you that," replied James somberly. He stood up and waved his arms and gave a sharp whistle. "Would you all please take a break now. We need the room to ourselves for a few moments and would appreciate your cooperation."

That made Artie smile. James sounded like a cop warning off spectators from getting too close to a crime scene. Fortunately, all but two of the agents were out on assignments and those two individuals traded looks but ambled out of the room, wisely closing the door behind them. They probably assumed that their boss was about to ream out MacPherson and James was keeping spectators to a minimum. Those suppositions worked as well as any other, Artie reasoned.

"You should get out now, you know," Artie told him as soon as he figured the outside corridor was empty. Glancing back over his shoulder he braced himself, knowing full well what his friend would say.

James obliged right on cue. "Not a chance. I wouldn't miss this for all the coffee beans in Columbia.

After resettling before the monitor, he lifted the mug of dark liquid and tried to catch his reflection. Nothing. The surface was dark with a somewhat lighter swath of color but that was all.

"This isn't right," he informed his partner. "I can't see anything."

Looking over the corner where they sat, MacPherson asked, "Is the lighting the same?"

Artie fairly jumped up. "No, it isn't. I had the desk lamp on and…" He located the other light source immediately simply by looking up. There was the standing lamp just behind the monitor, its shepherd crook design placing the shade directly over the Wacom tablet and keyboard. It cast a warm incandescent glow over that space. The angle of light was sufficient to illuminate the beverage as he tilted the cup. He caught sight of his image. Granted it was far from clear but he saw thick brows and anxiety rounded eyes. He pulled back immediately.

"Maybe you should leave," Artie advised again.

"I think not," replied James firmly. "I'm not looking into that thing. Theoretically nothing should happen to me and I want to make sure you don't disappear or end up sitting there as little more than a living corpse."

"Thanks for that mental imagery," quipped Artie. The next time he focused on the center of the cup, he concentrated on looking directly into the indistinct image of his own eyes. "Nothing," he added after about half a minute. "This is taking too long. I'd never stare into my coffee that long. Whatever happened last time, it only took a few seconds."

"What is your other self telling you?"

"Nothing. He's impatient, I sense that much. And that's it."

James grimaced in thought. "How about what I suggested before. Granted I was partly joking but what if he really did look into the mug more or less at the same moment you did. Then the transfer took place. So maybe it takes him looking into that mug again, on his 'side', to get you separated again."

"But if he's completely merged with me like you suggested that's not going to happen. Ever." Artie jabbed a finger at his glasses and leaned back in his seat, a look of defeat etched on his features.

Then Artie dragged himself to his feet and began pacing slowly. "Provided his body is still there, my only hope—his, his only hope of returning to normal is if his agents can figure out what happened to him and how to reverse it."

"And then time the transfer perfectly," James added, looking as forlorn as Artie felt.

"Damn," groaned Artie massaging both temples.


	11. Chapter 11

CHAPTER 11

"I don't recognize this," Pete flourished a pair of gloves.

"Artie uses them when he's working on electrical components. And if you paid more attention to the little details you'd know that."

"Ooo, a bit touchy today, aren't we?" Pete whined.

Myka threw an "I don't believe you" look at him. "Whatever we want, I'm betting it isn't the gloves. She went over the desk, going through a mental grid, looking at each piece on it. Artie's desk reflected his personal and work styles, disheveled and disorganized. But Myka was used to it. Her sharp eyes knew what belonged. They lit on his coffee cup. There were a bunch of them in the kitchenette cabinet at the back of the office. Some he used regularly and others only on occasion. This one she'd never seen before, at least not in his hand, although she vaguely recalled it being in there, off to one side for several months. She was going to reach for it when Pete's hand shot out and stopped her.

"Vibes?" she inquired after observing the serious look on his face.

"As soon as I followed where you were looking, I got that old feeling."

"Bad?"

Shrugged, he reached for purple gloves. "Nah, not as bad as usual, but I'm feeling it."

She knew better than to ignore the warning. Taking the gloves from him, she slid them on and lifted the mug. It looked reasonably new. Yellow. Plain. With lettering.

"_What happens when the window between reality and unreality breaks?" _she read aloud.

Pete's lips tightened in thought. "I don't know. What happens?"

Wondering if Pete was only trying to ease the tension in the room or if he truly wanted an answer, Myka turned to face him. "This is a paraphrase, Pete. The full version is "What happens to the wide-eyed observer when the window between reality and unreality breaks and the glass begins to fly?"

"Oh yeah, who said that?"

"No one knows, but I remember seeing it in a quote book once."

"So you think the window has broken and Artie didn't duck when the glass started flying?"

Pushing her dark wavy locks behind her ears, Myka muttered, "I don't think he knew what hit him."

"Makes me wonder why it hasn't happened before," Pete mused. "I mean, that mug has been around a little bit. Certainly it would have done its thing by now."

"Unless the timing is off. Maybe it required another component to work. A certain person touching it or…" her eyes swung toward the ceiling as she pondered the variables. "…the position of the person to the mug or maybe even the beverage."

"Huh?"

"Maybe it reacts to a certain beverage," she repeated. "Come on, Pete. Your own gut is telling you it's an artifact. So who knows what activates it." She sat down in Artie's plastic chair, at the work table her boss called a desk, and reached for the phone. "Leena, listen, I'm sorry to be so forward, but I need to ask you something."

There was a pause as Leena gave a quick affirmative response. "Do you, um, well, okay, I'll come out and say it. Do you remember putting a yellow mug with a saying about reality in the cabinet here?" Holding the phone to her ear, she listened intently. "Oh, really? Nothing at all? Could MacPherson's control have been strong enough to have you transport it in without you remembering it?"

This time Myka's frequent uh-huhs told Pete there was an in-depth one-sided conversation going on. Finally she said her farewells and hung up.

"Nu?" Pete said, affecting a Yiddish accent.

"To summarize, she said she doesn't remember everything that happened when she was under the influence of the Pearl of Wisdom. And after Mrs. Frederic went into her mind to heal over the wounds, she remembers even less."

"Bummer," Pete muttered. "So she has no memory of bringing the mug in."

"Well, she didn't say that. Leena agrees it could have happened. Since she was responsible for getting so many artifacts out without being detected, she admitted it's entirely possible she snuck some things in. The mug may have been one of them. Probably meant to be a distraction while MacPherson was doing his dirty work."

"I don't believe it! McNuttypants is plaguing us even after he's gone," grumbled Pete as he threw himself into a nearby upholstered leather chair.

"We're not sure he's the culprit. What's more important is trying to figure out how to get Artie back."

Throwing his hands up, Pete said, "I have no idea where to begin. Except to make a fresh pot of coffee. That's what he had in there before he 'disapparated'. Eww…I hope he didn't get splinched when he landed on the other side. That would not be cool. And messy."

Rolling her eyes at the Harry Potter reference, Myka said, "Will you please be serious? You go ahead and make the coffee."

"Can you do me a favor?"

"Sure?"

"Put that full quote up on the blackboard. Maybe if I stare at it long enough and hard enough, something about it will bitch slap me into finding an answer."

Myka obliged, if only because it gave her something to do while she was thinking. Did the message hold some meaning? She read it aloud and stared at the mug. Picked it up with gloved hands and read it aloud again as if saying the words would activate the artifact. Nothing happened. She worried her bottom lip as she thought about their dilemma. In fact, Myka was thinking so intently, she didn't hear Pete sneak up on her. She literally jumped when he said something right behind her and her hand flew to her chest as if to prevent her heart from flying out of her chest like that alien in the movie Pete was so fond of.

After chastising him, she asked what he needed. He focused on her bold print. "Just wondering. What's that old saying about the eyes being windows to the soul?"

"That's what many writers think." And then she had it. He was right, in a way. The saying on the mug was about windows between reality and unreality but maybe the key was the separation between those two states. Break the window. Make ingress and egress possible. Forget unreality. Maybe it was a doorway between their reality and a genuine alternate one. All those years of reading Physics Today and Scientific American was paying off. She knew what they speculated. But was it possible? In years past she would her turned her nose up at the idea. But after working at the Warehouse, she knew with every fiber of her being that _anything_ was possible. And a doorway between different realities was a definite possibility if she used that logic.

Without thinking, she grinned hugely and hugged Pete. Then she danced away and moved back to the desk.

"What? What?" Pete called after her.

"Elementary my dear Lattimer, this plain old ordinary mug may have the ability to open other realms or universes."

"You're joking right? That's a bit out there, even for this place?" He watched her closely. "You're serious, aren't you?"

"Completely," Myka assured him. "It would explain his sudden disappearance. He got pulled into an alternate reality of some kind by looking into the mug. Get it? You were right. The eyes are the windows…but to another reality, not to the soul. That's why this quote is on the mug. And getting him back may be as simple as recreating what happened in the first place."

"Uh, okay, how are we going to do that? There's no body to recreate it." Seeing the look on her face, he amended, "I mean, we'd need him here wouldn't we?

Myka's shoulders slumped and the rest of her body wilted afterward. "You're right. What we need to ask ourselves is this, is there another way around it? Can we fool the artifact into thinking he's actually there, then reopen that window and hope he will realize it and find his way back?"

"What about that thing Claudia used to identify the Spine," Pete inquired.

She knew exactly what he was referencing. "The Bell & Howell Spectroscope? Yeah. Yeah! After she upgraded it to a holographic projector she left it intact." Then she put both fists to her forehead and tapped them a few times. "This is horrible! She's not here and I have no idea how to get an image of Artie into holographic form without having an original of him here first."

"All you need are his eyes," Pete explained calmly.

Myka own green orbs grew enormous. "That's disgusting, even coming from you."

Smirking, he explained, "I meant we have his retina scans. Can't we use those?"

"I'm not sure if that'd be enough, Pete. Maybe it just needed his eyes looking directly into the mug. Maybe…oh my God! The reflection in the coffee. He was looking into his own reflection, looking into his own eyes and then he was gone."

"Or maybe he was looking into the eyes of the guy on the other end." When she gave him an odd look, he grew defensive, "Hey, I watch Sliders and Fringe. I get the gist of it."

That made Myka pause. He was right. Maybe. But it was logical. "In order for this to work in reverse, if it works at all that is, we'd need as many photos of him as we can find. Close ups, portraits. I'll try to figure out the projector. We'll scan his image. Specifically his face, and try to project the image onto the coffee in the mug."

"This whole thing is crazy. You know that, don't you? We need to get real here. If we are right about all this, what are the odds that he'd be on the other side, looking into a duplicate mug at the same moment we are."

"If he wants to get back, he'll do it for as long as it takes," she explained patiently.


	12. Chapter 12

CHAPTER 12

Artie periodically glanced down into the coffee wondering what was supposed to happen next. Obviously "nothing" wasn't the correct answer and James' expression said as much.

"Keep trying," James encouraged softly but with the tiniest hint of impatience. The truth was that he couldn't be sure anything was going to happen. On the other hand, Artie was such an integral part of his life; he couldn't just sit back and do nothing except watch the man struggling with himself.

The longer he had observed Artie, the more he noticed odd behaviors that Nielsen hadn't exhibited twenty four hours ago. He'd developed a habit of raking his fingers through his hair so that the curls stood up, giving him a more wild look than normal. And there was the way he poked at his glasses when they fell forward on his nose. 'His' Artie was typically more gentle about reseating them. Whoever the person was inside his friend, he was subtly subsuming Artie's behavioral traits and replacing them with his own. That in itself worried MacPherson. Worse, the Artie sitting before him had divulged something else. He was now experiencing a great deal of suspicion and a touch of hostility every time James got too close. The 'other Artie', the one on the opposite end of the equation, didn't like or trust James one bit and those feelings were bleeding over into the mind of his partner.

Arthur Nielsen, supervisor of the Minneapolis version of Warehouse 16, had grown afraid enough of the changes within his mind to voice his fears aloud. That's how James had learned all this. And that was why MacPherson was pushing Artie to keep at it. Whoever this version of Agent Nielsen was, James didn't want him laying claim to his Artie's mind and life.

"One more time," coaxed the man.

Sighing mightily, Artie took the mug in hand, two hands actually, and glared into it as if sheer force of will would make the thing work. He fiddled with the angle until the light area of his forehead came into view and then looked directly into the dark pools where his eyes would be. He saw the hint of white around the irises and held the image, willing a doorway to open. Mentally he cursed at the artifact, cursed the creator whoever he or she was, cursed the other guy for looking in his version of the mug and cursed the powers that be for infusing this object with such powerful foreign energies.

He stared at it so hard the room began to spin around him. Somehow he didn't keel over. The spinning increased and instinct told him to relax and run with it. Then, like a drain suddenly unclogged, the essence within him spiraled out of existence and he knew, beyond any doubt that he was free. And alone. No voices whispered at him. No images hovered at the periphery of his memory. And the constant sensation of simmering agitation, like a captured tiger pacing within a very small cage, vanished.


	13. Chapter 13

CHAPTER 13

"Oh my God!" cried Myka, jumping back from her place beside the holographic device projecting Artie's face directly into the coffee cup. The hazy beam of light was now broken by a very curly head. She had blinked once and like a flawless cut-scene, a person was there. That person looked bewildered, mildly irritated and more than a little fearful. The later emotion vanished the minute he caught sight of her gaping mouth.

Before he could move on his own, Pete's strong arms had grabbed him up into a powerful bear hug. Artie never even saw Myka's hand swoop down to snag the mug off the table.

What they finally saw was an enormous cascade of purple electrical sparks as the artifact sank into the canister of purple goo. Artie slumped in Pete's supportive grip, exhaustion and relief etched deeply onto his face.

"Guess you finally remembered to tap those ruby slippers three times, huh."

As he extricated himself from the other man's beefy arms, Artie mumbled, "It wasn't quite that simple. But I will acknowledge one truth."

"What's that?" Pete inquired with a smile.

Artie gave an appreciative glance around his old familiar workspace and said with a lopsided grin, "There's no place like home."


End file.
